Author - SftP Archives

Book Review: Sexual Preference — Its Development in Men and Women

Now a psychotherapist and two sociologists from the Kinsey Institute have added new coal to the fire. Using a statistical method called path analysis on data based on the childhood social and sexual behavior of 979 male and female homosexuals and 477 male and female heterosexuals, Bell, Weinberg, and Hammersmith offer...

Teachers Organize: Asbestos in the Classroom

In 1972 neither teachers nor staff at Newton North High School had heard about mosthelioma. Today they know a great deal about it. They were exposed to asbestos the first time they walked into the still unfinished high school in June 1972. For the next ten years they were exposed to low levels of asbestos whenever...

THE CHIPS ARE FALLING: Health Hazards in the Microelectronics Industry

Myths persist where facts are absent. The microelectronics industry is perceived as clean due to the absence of contrary facts, and because there is so much to be gained by neglecting the bad news about high-tech. The high-tech industry is touted by both liberal and conservative politicians as the industrial salvation...

Whose Computer Is It Anyway?

While these inequalities were not caused by computers, they may well be reproduced and even accentuated by their use. We examine here three areas in which these problems arise: hardware, software, and classroom use. We present more examples on the third area because it is more apt to be overlooked in discussions of...

Computers in the Classroom: Social Stratifiers or Liberating Equalizers?

Our observations and interviews were guided by a common set of orienting questions regarding the relationship between the characteristics of schools, the students they educate and the policies and practices of computer use in the five districts we studied. We found a very strong relationship between (1) the rationale...

Science Writing: Reporting on the Front Lines

I think we have a responsibility to try to point out the different implications of new research, rather than not writing about them. With the topic of PMS, some people interpreted it as another sign that women are all a little bit crazy. Other people interpreted it as finally taking seriously these symptoms that some...

“Selling the Tree of Knowledge”: Academia Incorporated

The current policies give unique license to private citizens—academic scientists in universities—to allocate and use public funds as they see fit, so long as it contributes to the interests of science as defined by scientists. This is a license to commercially exploit public resources for private gain. It is...

Teaching Radical Math: Taking the Numb Out of Numbers

Basic Mathematics for the people means more than the ability to calculate. It means the ability to reason quantitatively, the ability to use numbers to clarify issues and to support or refute opinions. Mathematics education for the people must also be mathematics education with the people. It cannot be taught using...

Symbols Over Substance: An Analysis of the Freeman-Mead Controversy

The Freeman/Mead affair is not the first time that the press went for symbols rather than substance in science. Press critics note in coverage of scientific controversies a heavy reliance on official or well-established scientific experts. One study contends, for example, that California reporters missed the story on...